1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an optical pulse source. Such a source might be used, for example, in a transmitter for a broadband optical network or in an optical interconnect.
2. Related Art
Broadband optical networks are expected to operate at data transmission rates of 100 Gbit/s and beyond. Operation at such rates places heavy demands on the optical sources used. The repetition rate required of the pulse source may be less than the full bit rate, since the datastream at the full bit rate will typically be generated by multiplexing the optical source in the time domain. However, for this to be possible, the pulses output by the source need to be of short duration and desirably should have low temporal jitter.